Screwing my Kids up?

Why is it that your children push and push and push your buttons until you completely snap and then when you do you feel like the worst mother in the world? My girls have been fighting, not listening, refusing to do chores and making bigger messes in the meantime. Trying to get them to school on time is frustrating to say the least.

They want and want and want until I don't think I have anything more to give. And then I lose it. Am I the only parent this happens to? I know things are harder now with Greg gone and I was never this emotional before he left. But I feel like things are just piling up and the walls are closing in on me. I get more and more irritable every day and I hate it.

So, this morning, after I flipped my lid on the 2 middle girls, I came home and was nearly in tears, emotionally beating myself up because the look in their eyes when I yelled broke my heart. I felt horrible. Maybe it's because I'm getting less sleep, I'm stressed out with the weight of the world on my shoulders, my husband will be entering a war zone shortly and I don't know when I'll see him again. I'm in a new duty station where I haven't met anyone; I've been told the PTA moms are extremely cliquey and exclusive. Whatever it is, I need to get a handle on it.

My mission this deployment is to learn how to balance it all...the house, school, soccer practice, the kids, supportive wife, a good friend, aspiring teacher...etc etc etc...and throughout all of it try to raise my daughters so that they won't be sitting in a therapist's office in 20 years telling them how much their mother screwed them up.

So, Hand Over the Coffee....I've got shit to do!